Autobiography, with Letters

ONE day in the Spring of 1888 Doctor John Meigs, Head
Master of the great Hill School at Pottstown, Pa., entered
my room and offered me a position as teacher. I told him I
had no experience. 'You will get it with us.' At that time
the Hill School had no superior in America and I was flattered by the offer, especially as a good salary came with it.
We talked it over, and I was about to accept, when I
thought I had better ask what subject he expected me to
teach. 'Mathematics.' Then I knew the Hill School was
not for me. I told him I was incapable. 'But these are elementary mathematics.' I said there were no elementary
mathematics; I had had a wide experience, and had never
seen any. 'Can't you teach arithmetic?''No, Sir; it would
be taking money on false pretences.' He laboured with me
for a long while, and finally went away sorrowful. I was
not very happy myself; but in two or three weeks Mr. William Lee Cushing entered the same room, and said he was
about to found a new school for boys at Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., to be called Westminster School, and wanted me to
teach there. 'What subject?''Anything you like.' I liked
all the history and all the English, and we came to an
agreement in a few minutes.

The salary was even better than that from the other
school. As there were practically no expenses, I saved
enough to help me through another year of graduate study,
to give me three months bicycling in Europe, and to leave
five hundred dollars for my wedding journey.

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